Royal Navy veterans are being kicked out of their clubhouse so the land around it can be used as a travellers' camp.

The former servicemen say the decision signals the death knell for their association which was formed 76 years ago.

The local council says that Whitehall diktats oblige it to find a home for the travellers who are illegally occupying green-belt land.

Eight itinerant families will now be able to move on to the site at Northfleet, near Gravesend in Kent.

The clubhouse on the land had been leased by the local branch of the Royal Naval Association for three decades.

John Down, the club's chairman and a Korean War veteran, said: 'I'm so angry we are being treated like this. We have 160 members who all did their bit.

'We risked life and limb for this great country that we wholeheartedly believed in. Now we are being treated like dirt, turfed out so that traveller families can move in.

'We've paid our taxes all our lives and are still doing so. What have these people done? This country has lost the plot. It will be our death knell if we have to move.'
John Richards, another club member, said: 'Someone needs the courage to say enough is enough.

Tory-run Gravesham Council granted planning permission for the travellers to move to the grounds on condition that its officers find an alternative home for the association.